Judy Sanders doesn't mind summer guests, so long as they aren't the green flying type.

The South 10th Street resident is one of many folks on the south end of Ironton puzzled by a plague of pesky green flies.

"It's amazing," Sanders said. "We just don't go out. We just are prisoners in our own house."

The flies in question seem to be green bottle flies, the common name for several variations of the Phaenicia species.

Such flies breed in a litany of places, most of which seems as disgusting as the flies they help spawn. Potential breeding sites include: animal carcasses, animal feces and garbage.

Residents, armed with fly spray and fly swatters, have taken their frustrations to the city's health department.

Sanders and several other southside residents have contacted Aaron Edwards, Ironton Health Commissioner.

"I don't know; I really don't know why," Edwards said, adding that he's received far more complaints about flies from the south end of town. "Maybe it's possible that people in the north end of town cover their trash more."

That argument doesn't, well, fly for Sanders.

"As far as I can see

everybody in our area has taken very good care of their garbage," she said.

Edwards said his department sprays insecticide three times per year. The first spraying of the season was during the middle of July.

"It has been better since they sprayed and since we sprayed our yard, but I hate to use poisons around the house," Sanders said. "I just don't like to breathe all of that stuff."

"The best way to get rid of green flies," Edwards said. "Is to have everything covered. I know that's hard to do with the way garbage has been going lately."

He was referring to changes in the city's garbage pick-up routes that have been made in the last couple of months after the city was forced to cut one of its garbage crews. The result was temporary periods during which garbage wasn't picked up in a timely fashion. Such delays recently have been remedied.

Sanders that while the garbage delays may have complicated the issue, the delays can't be the whole source.

"We had them last summer," she said. "It's probably three times as many (this year) as we had last summer."

Sanders' concern over the flies is now as much curiosity as it is frustration and disgust.

"I understand that people used to call this 'Frogtown,'" she said. "I wish there were more frogs around now to eat the flies. Maybe that's what we need.

"We're just trying to figure out why in the world the green flies like us so well," she said, laughing.